A review by elisacp
Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky

3.0

I wish I had quite the rapturous response to this book that many have had. I expected to relate to it very closely. My own mother was born in France in early 1940 after her parents fled Czechoslovakia. They also fled France at right around the time of this novel, eventually making their way to the U.S.

Unfortunately at some point I felt the book focused only on petty people and the small picture.

It is a clear-eyed, spare look, which has its virtues, but I would have preferred a bit more emotional heft. The heft there is is provided by knowing Nemirovsky's fate.